After plugging in the power at home the player doesn't start up. Connecting to the console I get the following:

e000 v1.04
Copying kernel...
Calling linux kernelþ
empeg-car bootstrap v1.00 20000601 ([email protected])
If there is anyone present who wants to upgrade the flash, let them speak now,
or forever hold their peace...it seems not. Let fly the Penguins of Linux!

e000 v1.04
Copying kernel...
É�‰½½ÑÍÑÉinux kernel½µ¥5)ÿIf there is anyone present who wants to upgrade the flash, let them speak now,
or forever hold their peace...it seems not. Let fly the Penguins of Linux!

e000 v1.04
Copying kernel...
Calling linux kernelþ
empeg-car bootstrap v1.00 20000601 ([email protected])
If there is anyone present who wants to upgrade the flash, let them speak now,
or forever hold their peace...it seems not. Let fly the Penguins of Linux!

e000 v1.04
Copying kernel...
Calling linux kernelþ
empeg-car bootstrap v1.00 20000601 ([email protected])
If there is anyone present who wants to upgrade the flash, let them speak now,
or forever hold their peace...it seems not. Let fly the Penguins of Linux!

e000 v1.04
Copying kernel...
É�‰½½ÑÍÑÉinux kernel½µ¥5)ÿIf there is anyone present who wants to upgrade the flash, let them speak now,
or forever hold their peace...it seems not. Let fly the Penguins of Linux!

e000 v1.04
Copying kernel...
Calling linux kernelþ
empeg-car bootstrap v1.00 20000601 ([email protected])
If there is anyone present who wants to upgrade the flash, let them speak now,
or forever hold their peace...it seems not. Let fly the Penguins of Linux!

e000 v1.04
Copying kernel...
Calling linux kernelþ
empeg-car bootstrap v1.00 20000601 ([email protected])
If there is anyone present who wants to upgrade the flash, let them speak now,
or forever hold their peace...it seems not. Let fly the Penguins of Linux!

e000 v1.04
Copying kernel...
É�‰½½ÑÍÑÉinux kernel½µ¥5)ÿIf there is anyone present who wants to upgrade the flash, let them speak now,
or forever hold their peace...it seems not. Let fly the Penguins of Linux!

which repeats for ever (at least several minutes). I have tried to upgrade the player hoping that would fix the problem but the upgrade util says 'empeg unit not found'.

Is there anything that can be done or will it need to return it to get it fixed (obviously well out of warranty now - can they still be fixed)?

thanks for any help,
Andy.

Hmm...

I suspect that your upgrade file may be bad.

I would recommend you re-download a fresh copy of the 2.0 developer final. Have the upgrader running and the player powered off. Power it on only when it tells you. (You will need to shut down hyperterminal first, just to make certain the port is free.)

In theory, the log seems to show that it is getting past that first "do you want to upgrade" section, and it looks like it is hitting a corrupt kernel. You only have a very short window for the upgrader to contact the player before the kernel tries to start loading. It may take a few tries to get that window to match. Let the upgrader ask you to power on the unit, and wait a second or two before plugging the player in.

The boot / upgrader is in a protected area of flash, so there should be no way it was overwritten accidentally. Technically, it could be a hardware problem, but I would think the odds of that happening are very low.

I have been trying to do that but have not succeeded. (Note I am doing all this on linux.)

I start the upgclient and wait for 'Finding player' message then plug in the power. Doesn't seem to be of any help.

Andy.

What about applying a kernel (such as one of Mark's kernels) with download.c? Does that work?

Don't know what the problem was but it seems to ok now. I still have not managed to upgrade to the latest v2.00 version - but will leave it at beta 11 until after an upcoming trip. I was panicing a bit at the thought of driving across France with no empeg.

Thanks for the help.

Andy.

I would VERY DEFINITELY recommend you immediately upgrade from B11 to B13 or V2.0. There is a bug known as the "Huge INI file" which will cause you all sorts of agony if it hits.

The Linux UPGclient is (and has been) broken for some time now, but only for certain serial chipsets (at the PC end). It works for me on some of my machines, but not on others.. try a different (older?) PC for good luck.

Cheers

You can try my rewritten empeg-download instead for installing Hijack. It seems to solve some of the underlying serial port problems on faster machines. Then you should be able to use Mark's method to do the upgrade over the network.

I would VERY DEFINITELY recommend you immediately upgrade from B11 to B13 or V2.0. There is a bug known as the "Huge INI file" which will cause you all sorts of agony if it hits.

Yeah, listen to Rob.

Note that the huge-ini-file bug is only in emplode beta 11 (not in the player software), and once it's happened, you have to hand-correct your ini file. Upgrading doesn't automatically solve the problem, it just keeps it from getting any worse. Details here.

I never use emplode - only emptools so that isn't going to be a problem.

Andy.

Okay, this is wierd. Never had this issue, but just now thru my FTP client, I issued a "SITE reboot" command. The same one I've been doing all day, messing with my config.ini.
Only thing is, this last time, my player never came up. What *I* get, is:

e000 v1.04
Copying kernel...
empeg-car bootstrap v1.02 20001106 ([email protected])
On DC power, quick boot

e000 v1.04
Copying kernel...
empeg-car bootstrap v1.02 20001106 ([email protected])
On DC power, quick boot

...over and over and over.. Pulling power and 'coldbooting' took care of it.
Not that it'd be of any help, but strange that I see this, now, after this post shows up.

Me.

I too have seen that from time to time, but quite rarely.

I attribute it to a slight (but permanent) initialization bug in the boot firmware.

Cheers

Well now it doesn't work at all. Never got it to work during the trip .

Plug in power and the leds and on the front and back blink but there doesn't seem to be anything else happening. Nothing appears on the serial port.

Opened it up in case I could see any obvious problems but it looks ok. Inside there is a red flashing led - is this what it is supposed to do?

Not sure what to do. Anyone know any other good car mp3 players?

Andy.

The blue LED on the back blinks? That doesn't sound right.

Worst case, you could get it repaired. I know we live in a disposable society, but many things are still worth fixing.